


Necessary Evils

by steveelotaku



Category: Hellraiser (Movies)
Genre: Bureaucracy, Dark Comedy, Gen, Pre-Hellraiser Judgment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 09:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21159239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steveelotaku/pseuds/steveelotaku
Summary: The Hell Priest has been an expert in all forms of torture and torment, and can withstand all forms of pain and suffering.Except for bureaucracy.This department merger is going to be hell.(Pre-Hellraiser Judgment, explaining how the Order of the Gash came to be working with the Stygian Inquisition. The concept of two such wildly different orders being forced together was hilarious in my mind.)





	Necessary Evils

The Hell Priest was not having a good day. Not that one could really tell what a good day was in Hell, no matter what abstraction of Hell one walked across. Centuries of pain and pleasure had, regrettably, dulled his senses—a necessary evil, perhaps, to have pins driven into your skull, but that did not mean he could not suffer still.

“So,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm and level. “You mean to tell me that these forms are mandatory.”

“Indeed,” said the equally beleaguered Auditor. “Lucifer’s orders.”

“My belief, perhaps mistaken, was that Lucifer was too busy with his own miseries to inflict this blood-red tape onto others.”

The Auditor sighed, pushed up his glasses, and shook his head.

“Lucifer has wished to…merge our departments. He has been talking with Leviathan…”

The Priest gritted his teeth, fists balling under leather gloves.

“And for this, 500 pages are necessary? The Stygian Inquisition is hardly so subtle!”

“Please. We are professionals, Priest. Judgment is an important part of punishment. Think of it as the sauce on the meat. The spice. What is punishment without judgment?”

“Pleasure,” the Priest deadpanned. “What you’re describing is business. As if this was a mere transaction. Forgive my tempestuousness, but last I checked, _the Order of the Gash was not a police force!_”

“Hell is changing. You’ve seen it yourself. Your boxes, your toys and games, no longer bring enough sinners to Hell. We tolerated the sadomasochism for a while, because it got results. Now? Evil is so mundane, so petty, so simple. What fool would take a wood box promising pleasure if he could simply order his vice of choice from the dark web?”

The Priest sighed. The Auditor had a point, and if Leviathan was ordering the merger with Lucifer, there was precious little he could do except accept the suffering.

“You’ll have to walk me through this,” The Priest said. “You’ve convinced me to accept terms—far be it from me to defy the will of our masters. However, I thought horrific amounts of paperwork were the punishments of crooked clerks, not our day to day routine.”

“Well, you won’t be completing them alone—a few of your people, a few of mine, and we’ll have this matter settled shortly. Tell me, Priest, do you enjoy Beethoven?”

“I prefer the sound of razors through flesh.”

“_Mein gott, _Priest, you are _butchers_, here. Such waste!”

The Priest laughed mirthlessly.

“No, the Butcher works in _your _department. So, where do these all go?”

“Well, it works like income taxes. I assume you remember those from your host’s life?”

“The human Captain Elliot Spencer died well before the modern form of income tax. There have doubtless been changes to the format.”

“Right. Well, you’ll be happy to know that 250 of these forms are practice forms, to ensure the good copies don’t have any mistakes.”

“Happiness is relative. The Order of the Gash does not make mistakes.”

“What about the Kirsty affair?”

Anger flashed in the Hell Priest’s eyes.

“Do not speak of her, Auditor. The matter was settled long ago.”

“Inefficiently. We aim for sharper results. Have you considered more formal attire?”

“These robes are my robes of office! There is none more formal—“

“You haven’t tried Brooks Brothers.”

The Hell Priest muttered irritably. Oh, there would be a lot of torment after this conversation. Doubtless involving hooks. Lots and lots of hooks. If the Order favoured drink, he noted, he would be getting very soundly plastered after this.

“You keep your robes of office. I will keep mine. I do not require you to wear leather in my presence. Do not require me to wear a cheap suit in yours.”

“I would not dream of it—I spared no expense for this one.”

A few hours later…

“So, one more time—the _yellow _parchment goes to the Assessor, the _red _stays with me in my files, _green _gets filed in triplicate—“

“Almost. The _red _is duplicated—Lucifer gets a copy as well. Green is given to the workers of our separate orders with one more copy remaining in the archives.”

“At least this system is fairly simple. I’ll have to task my order with the rest of these—I’ve completed my portion so far.”

“We pared down the worst of the excess,” The Auditor explained. “We initially had someone from the IRS create the system, but it was incomprehensible and somehow the wealthiest sinners kept slipping out of the files.”

“I cannot imagine how that would happen,” The Priest said, trying not to smile. “Well, affairs seem to be in order.”

“They do. A pleasure doing business, Priest.”

“I wish I could say the same, Auditor.”

The Auditor offered a malicious grin.

“I thought you people _enjoyed _meaningless suffering.”

And with that, the Auditor left, leaving the Priest muttering a string of barely audible curses and threats involving several anatomically impossible acts.


End file.
